


This Awkward Dance (The Things I'd Never Do Remix)

by isyotm



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyotm/pseuds/isyotm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Arthur are not-dating, but maybe they'd both like to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Awkward Dance (The Things I'd Never Do Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GeekLover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekLover/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Things I'd Never Do](https://archiveofourown.org/works/578011) by [GeekLover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekLover/pseuds/GeekLover). 



> I was excited (and a little nervous) to get your name because I'm something of a fan of yours. I'd never read Things I'd Never Do before, but as soon as I got to the violin scene, I knew I wanted to remix it. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s not a secret, exactly. He doesn’t intentionally hide it, but he knows how people are.

_“Oh really? Wow! I had no idea!”_

_“Play something for us!”_

And it’s private. When he plays, glides his bow across the strings, feels the violin hum under his hands, he thinks of his mother. He remembers her smile, her laugh, her patience as he played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” over and over again until he got them right. It helps him feel close to her.

That’s not something he wants to share with everyone. It’s just for him.

So he’s a little surprised to hear himself bring it up as he’s sitting across from Arthur at their weekly dinner.

Although, to be fair, Arthur broaches the topic first.

“My father tried to get me to learn piano when I was young, but, well…” Arthur looks away, embarrassed by some memory of his younger self. “It was difficult to get younger me to sit still for that long.” He chuckles. “Looking back on it, I feel sorry for the woman my father hired to teach me.”

Merlin laughs. He can see it in his mind’s eye, a young Arthur scampering for freedom, leaving the piano bench and his bewildered teacher in the dust.

“At least it’s hard to break a piano. My mom was always worried I’d drop my violin.” He blinks and takes a long gulp from his water. Why did he say that?

The silence stretches, going past “comfortable” and into “too long.” When he glances up, Arthur is making that face he always make when he learns something new about Merlin, like he’s working extra hard to commit it to memory so he won’t ever forget.

It sends a thrill down Merlin’s spine and wakes up the butterflies in his stomach.

“You play violin?” Arthur asks finally, taking a bite out of the meal in front of him.

“Not as much as I used to. You couldn’t get me to stop when I was little.” He smiles down at his hands. The callouses on his fingertips are mostly gone, but when he rubs his hands together, he can still feel the rough edges catch on his skin and the edge of his shirt. “My mom taught me.” A memory catches him off guard, so strong it almost sweeps him away. He’s standing in the living room of their old apartment, the sunlight coming in strong through the window, as his mother teaches him his first duet.

_“The most important thing is keeping in time with your partner, alright, Merlin?”_

_“Why’s that?”_

_“Any piece you play with someone else is a team effort. It only comes out right if you work together.”_

Arthur’s hand on his arm, warm and solid, jolts him back to the present. “I’d like to hear you play sometime.”

To his surprise, the question makes him flush with pleasure. It doesn’t bother him the way it would coming from anyone else. “M-maybe.”

* * *

 “I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?”

“Meet me at the music building in an hour.”

“You know, usually when you want someone to do something, you ask them nicely. There’s even this fancy word, ‘please,’ that tends to get involved.”

“Merlin, my dear friend, would you _please_ do me the great honor of meeting me at the music building in exactly one hour’s time? I have a surprise that I wish to share with you.”

Merlin has to stifle a laugh. “Why Arthur, good sir, I would verily be glad to do so.”

“See you then.”

It takes him a while to find the music building—there’s a moment where he wants to give up and call Arthur to ask for directions—but luckily someone has decided to play their bassoon outside today and he follows the sound of it to the music building. He sees Arthur leaning against the low brick wall, glancing at his phone, looking around, and then frowning back down at his phone.

He smiles. “Hey.”

Arthur’s head snaps up. “Hey. Did you get lost?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s alright, Merlin, not everyone can have my superior sense of direction.”

Merlin pulls back his sleeve and glances down at his bare wrist. “Is that the time already? Wow, I guess I can’t hang out after all, you know, things to do.”

Arthur wraps his hand around Merlin’s wrist and when he speaks, his voice is lower, almost urgent. “Wait. I wanted to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“Close your eyes.”

“How are you supposed to _show_ me if I—?”

“Please?”

And Arthur’s looking at him with such earnest eyes and Merlin finds himself smiling, saying “Okay” softly, and closing his eyes.

He feels Arthur pull him into the building, the sounds of winds and brass and strings and percussion buffeting him as they move past the practice rooms and deeper into the building. He hears another door open, feels a change in the air, and the sounds of their feet come harder now, more clipped. _Wood floors_ , he thinks.

It feels like they’re in the middle of a large, empty space when Arthur finally lets go of his hand and says, “Okay. Open.”

It takes his eyes a second to adjust to the blinding brilliance of the stage lights but then he sees it: A plain black music stand, a chair, and a blue violin case. It takes him a moment to get over the initial shock—Arthur set this all up, Arthur set this all up _for_ _him_ —and get his mouth to work. “I can’t do this, Arthur. I don’t even have any music prepared.”

There’s always this awkward dance when someone asks him to play. A refusal from him, an insistence from the other person, back and forth until someone folds. Usually it’s the other person, after they realize he’s not being modest. But this time... This time, he wants to be the one to fold.

“What do you take me for, Merlin? Of course I have some music prepared for you. Now you have no other excuses. You have the music, you have the instrument. And you don’t have to be nervous. It’s only me.”

Merlin chuckles, trying to cover the odd thrill the words send through him. It’s only Arthur. His mind lends an odd emphasis to the words, placing the stress somewhere else, changing the meaning, nearly carrying him away with the idea of what could be. He tries to focus back on the moment and dissipate some of the odd tension he can feel building in the air, but his voice trembles ever so slightly as he says, “Never thought I’d hear you say that. ‘It’s only me.’ Modesty looks good on you, Arthur.”

“Shut up.”

He laughs. He glances at the music Arthur picked out and while he’s surprised to see some of his favorite pieces on display—Seitz’s concertos and Corelli’s “La Folia” and Veracini’s gigue—they don’t feel right. For the first time, he wants to share exactly what this means to him, exactly what it feels like to play the violin, especially after his mother’s death. He takes a deep breath and says, “Actually…I have this music I wrote my last year in college. I haven’t played it in years, and no one’s ever heard it. I could play that.”

Arthur’s smile makes him feel warm down to his bones, the sun on a spring day. “That’s fine. I just want to hear you play.”

He nods, unzips the case, and runs his fingers gently over the violin. The fingerboard is worn in some places by countless other hands, but when he runs the bow over the strings, it’s perfectly in tune. The sound is warm and rich and beautiful and Merlin lets it roll over him, pick him up, and sweep him away.

_It rained for three days after his mother died. Water poured from the sky, soaked the grass and the trees and the road. Lightning lit up the sky and waves of thunder boomed so loud they shook the glass in the window panes. Merlin stayed at home, his safe port, and stared out the window, losing himself to the storm. The sky was grey, the lights were off, and it felt like he moved through those three days half asleep._

_He wanted to wake up. He wanted to capture a piece of the storm for himself. He wanted to play something his mother could hear, no matter where she was, and know how much she had meant to him._

_On the fourth day, the rain stopped. He drove to his mother’s empty house and played the song he’d written._

Merlin’s eyes flutter open and he looks at Arthur (and when did he get so close?) for…something. Approval, maybe. He doesn’t expect to see such an intense expression on his face, or the raw emotion in his eyes. And maybe it’s the adrenaline or the fluttering in his stomach or the fact that Arthur is finally _so close_ , the way he’s been wanting this entire time without even realizing it, but Merlin finds himself reaching out and pulling Arthur even closer, holding the violin out of the way as he crushes their bodies together and kisses him as if he’s never wanted anything else.


End file.
